


Snow, Cars and a Journey not too Far

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [173]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Car breakdown, F/M, Fluff, Kindly Strangers, Lapsed Jewish Wanda Maximoff, Meet-Cute, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 23:45:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16820848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: Its strange. Wanda’s not usually one to just trust strangers, even those who offer help - sometimes,especiallythose who offer help - but this man seems to be one of the most genuine people she’s ever encountered even despite that.“What’s your name?” she asks, as the man starts hitching her car to the back of his, his cup of hot chocolate balanced on the roof of his car.The man, when he looks at her, is startled. “I apologise,” he says. “I completely forgot.” He offers his hand. “Vision Stark,” he says. “You can call me Vizh. You are?”





	Snow, Cars and a Journey not too Far

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the first of the [Alternate Universe Scarlet Vision Christmas Prompts](https://alternateuniversescarletvision.tumblr.com/post/180720736367/christmas-prompt-1). To quote: _Wanda is trapped on the side of the road in a snowstorm after her car breaks down and Vision is a stranger who stops to offer her a jumper, some hot chocolate and a new eye on the engine._
> 
> Ended up being a little longer than expected.

_ Fuck. _

Wanda clonks her head against the front of the car, before letting the hood back down. She wishes Pietro were here. She can fix most basic problems on her own, but without her brother as an extra pair of hands and half the tools of their workshop she’s got no idea how to fix this. She hasn’t got a jack either, so even if she can get underneath the car to have a look - without a torch, she might add - there’s no guarantee she’d be able to manoeuvre enough to fix it. 

_ Damnit Pietro, _ she thinks.  _ Had to go off and join Dad. _

The car is dead, so she slams the door shut, kicks the wheel bad-temperedly, and fishes out her phone.

Which is dead.

Wanda very  _ very _ much wants to scream out swear words, but given the neighbourhood that’s probably likely to get her reported to the police. Strange woman screaming swear words in the snow. Yeah, that’ll go down well. Instead, she shoves at her car, pushing it off the drive she was half-covering, then hits the brakes and locks it. Begrudgingly, she paces over to the nearest house. 

She stops before she’s even halfway up the drive. It’s all glammed up for Christmas - lights all over the eaves and wrapped around the pillars of the porch, baubles hanging in the windows and a big glittery light-bulb glowing snowman on the lawn. She hasn’t really  _ believed _ since she was small, but the idea of going up to a house so prepared for Christmas leaves a bad taste in her mouth. 

She is, she reminds herself, only a few miles out from where Clint said he’d meet her to show her the way to the farm. She could… walk.

She looks at the snow-and-slush-covered road, at the snow still falling and internally shakes her head. Nope. She’s not her brother, so used to the cold it barely affects him. She is, as Pietro loves to point out, a squishy little witch.

_ Fuck. _

Wanda paces back to her car, sticks her keys in the ignition, and tries to start it again.  _ Please, _ she wishes, in the way that sometimes actually works for her.  _ Please work you little piece of shit. _

It chugs, and complains, and stutters back to silence.

_ Please, damnit. _

Chugs, complains, but the engine doesn’t turn over.

_ Come on you piece of- _

_ Knockknockknock. _

Wanda turns to look at her window. There’s a big SUV pulled up beside her, and a man - tall, thin, wispy blond hair and cheeks pinked by cold - knocking at her window. She shuts off the car completely and cracks open her door, rather than waste battery rolling the window down.

“Car trouble?” the man asks. He’s got a soft English accent that edges around his words in the same way that Clint’s twang sometimes does. Nothing like the clean and tidy accent of Natasha, or the Eastern European lilt Wanda and her brother still have even after all these years. “Do you need a hand?”

Wanda eyes him warily, but so far as she can tell, he’s not malicious. She’s always prided herself at being better at understanding people than her brother, even if he is the better at finding threats. 

“Yes,” she says eventually. “Please. I would call for help, but-” she waves her phone, screen dark. “Battery is gone. And my brother is back home with Father.”

The man smiles, something warm and gentle. “I’m good with cars,” he says. “My dad likes to tinker with ours; he taught me how to do the same since before I could walk. Give me a moment.”

And it’s precisely that. Wanda steps out of her car to watch and the man takes about a minute to drive his car a little way along and park. When he steps out, he immediately goes to the back doors, and fishes out what seems to be a toolkit, a thermos, and a jumper.

“Here,” he says, tossing the jumper at her. “You look frozen.”

“Trying to save battery,” Wanda says, gratefully tugging the woolly thing on - its a dark burgundy with green-grey patterning along the hems and its toasty warm. “Thank you.”

He smiles at her, even as he pops the hood and starts poking at the engine. “There’s hot chocolate in the thermos if you want it. Do you have any idea what the problem is?”

Wanda shrugs. “Not anything under the hood, I think. I did not spot anything that struck me as wrong. I would lift it up to look underneath, but,” she shrugs. “No jack. Without my brother here I don’t want to risk it alone.”

“Very sensible,” he says. “Always best to have a spare pair of hands.” He glances at her, still slightly shivering by the car door, and nudges the thermos. “Please,” he says. “It’s still warm. Help yourself.”

* * *

Thirty minutes later and even he’s starting to shiver. He doesn’t have a jack either, but he decides to risk taking a torch and poking around underneath as best he can. Wanda’s car isn’t too low to the road, but there really isn’t much manoeuvring room, and in the end he couldn’t spot anything.

“I have no idea,” he says. “I’m sorry, I’d offer you my phone, but I don’t have one. I could tow you some of the way to where you need to go, if you’d like? I’m ahead of schedule and if we’re going in the same direction-”

Wanda passes him a cup of the hot chocolate. She’s already had a cup and a half - its delicious, thick and warm and clearly made with actual chocolate melted down into it. She’s not had anything like this since before Father found them in Sokovia, when Pietro and she had managed to wrangle a tiny two room apartment. Pietro had stolen milk and chocolate, scared up a saucepan somehow, and used the tiny half-broken hob in the corner to make some. The man accepts the cup gratefully.

“I would appreciate that,” she says. “I’m heading… about two miles further, in this direction? There is a turning; my friend will be waiting for me.”

“I can do that,” the man says. He’s packing away the torch and spanner he’d pulled out with one hand. “Let me put this away first.”

Its strange. Wanda’s not usually one to just trust strangers, even those who offer help - sometimes,  _ especially  _ those who offer help - but this man seems to be one of the most genuine people she’s ever encountered even despite that. 

“What’s your name?” she asks, as the man starts hitching her car to the back of his, his cup of hot chocolate balanced on the roof of his car.

The man, when he looks at her, is startled. “I apologise,” he says. “I completely forgot.” He offers his hand. “Vision Stark,” he says. “You can call me Vizh. You are?”

“Wanda,” she says, taking his hand and shaking. He’s got a firm grip. “Wanda Maximoff.”

* * *

When they reach the turning Wanda spots Clint before he spots them. She waves out the window, and Vision pulls over slowly as Clint runs to the car.

“Oh, Wanda, thank God. Pietro was frantic. What  _ happened?” _

She gestures back to where her car is forlornly trailing. “Car trouble,” she says. “And my phone ran out of battery.”

Clint nods at that and passes her his phone. “May wanna let your brother know you’re ok,” he says and nods past her to Vision. “Thanks for helping her.”

“It was no trouble,” Vision says. “Would you like me to follow you the rest of the way, rather than unhitch and rehitch the car?”

Wanda taps the button to send the text and turns to Vision. “You don’t have to,” she assures him. “You have done more than enough.”

He smiles at her though, something warm and gentle. “It’s no trouble,” he says. “I’m not due home for another day; I just set off early in case this weather happened.” She bites her lip slightly, frowning. “As I said, I’m ahead of schedule. I can make the last leg of it in a few hours.”

“If you’re willing,” Clint says, taking his phone back and cutting in before Wanda can refuse. “That would be fantastic. C’mon! The kids and Laura are dying to see you. It’s been far too long.”

Clint’s truck shudders awake, and he turns it down the narrow road. It’s a small one-lane back road, between two broad and largely empty fields. 

Wanda rolls the window up. Outside, the snow is still falling. “Thank you,” she says. “For- all of this.”

“It’s no trouble,” Vision says again. “Truly.”

“But if you are expected-”

He shakes his head. “Not for another day.” 

His fingers tap a small beat against the steering wheel, matching a little oddly to the squeak of the windscreen wipers. The snow isn’t that much heavier, but it’s still falling; the clouds above a dark and ashy grey that promises more snow to come.

“My father and I are… estranged,” Vision says slowly. “I’m only going home for Mum’s sake. And given how much time he spends in his lab, he won’t notice. Mum already knows not to expect me until tomorrow.” He glances at her, seemingly nervous and almost shy. “I’d much rather spend the time here helping you, than dancing around my father at home.”

She smiles. “I understand.” She nods ahead, at the lights of Clint’s bumper. “I’m visiting rather than spend time with my father. Usually Pietro would come with me but… not this time.”

The road is getting bumpier, and after a moment Clint turns right. A hill is rising in the distance, topped with a large stand of trees. Wanda’s starting to recognise this, even through the snow, and smiles. 

Finally they round the last bend and the farmhouse comes into view. There’s lights on upstairs - Lila and Cooper’s room, Wanda bets - but there’s lights on downstairs as well. And, given the small forms bouncing in the light of the window, Wanda doesn’t doubt that the Barton kids have stayed up to wait for her.

It’s strange. She loves the Bartons. They’ve been far kinder to her than she sometimes deserves, and always willing to let her visit when she needs to escape father’s oppressive expectations, or when Pietro just needs space to run. 

And yet, when she contemplates getting out of this car, unhitching her own, and waving good-bye to Vision, she feels a pang of loss.

She turns her hands over in her lap as Vision pulls over beside Clint’s. Pulls the sleeves of the jumper over her hands - Vision’s jumper, she remembers. She pulls the sleeves more, drags her arms out of them.

“Thank you,” she says, passing it back. From Vision’s expression it seems he’d almost forgotten she was wearing his jumper as well.

“No trouble,” he says again, taking it and tucking it in the back seat. 

“Come on in,” Wanda says on an impulse. “Clint will want to make sure you get paid back-”

Vision shakes his head. “It’s nothing,” he says. “Really.”

“Come on in anyway,” Wanda says. “Clint  _ will  _ invite you.”

There’s a rap at the door and Wanda grins at him. 

“Come on in,” Clint says, muffled by the door. “Both of you!”

Somewhat resigned, Vision turns his car off, and unbuckles his seat belt.

* * *

Wanda’s almost taken out at the knees when she gets in, Lila and Cooper immediately running over. Natasha waves from a seat, a book titled in Russian on her lap, a glass of wine on the small table beside her. Laura’s already in the doorway, kissing Clint on the cheek, baby bump making a small gap between them, before moving to wrap Wanda in a hug.

“We were so worried,” she says. “I’m glad you got here safe.”

“Thank Vision,” she says, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. She hears him shuffle his feet as Laura goes to hug him too.

“You can’t go driving back in that weather,” Laura says when she steps back. Her arms are firmly crossed over her the small bump of her belly. “Not after you’ve been so kind as to help Wanda, and not this late; I won’t allow it. Come in, warm up. We’ll make up the spare bed. Without Pietro here it’s not being used; you don’t mind, do you Wanda?”

Wanda shakes her head.

Laura nods. “Then its sorted. You can stay the night and when the snow’s stopped tomorrow we’ll clear the road and get you on your way.”

When Wanda looks at Vision she can’t help but smile at his bowled-over bemused smile.

“Thank you,” he says. “That’s very generous of you.”

Tentatively, Wanda reaches out to take Vision’s hand in hers. “No more generous than you were to me,” she says.

His smile to her is gentle and lovely.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


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